Surely you know countless urban legends, those supernatural and terrifying stories that are told to be scary in special moments, such as the Halloween celebration or on the nights we spend with a group of friends.
An urban legend can be defined as a story that belongs to contemporary folklore and that, although it contains unlikely elements, is narrated as a fact that has really happened. Traditionally they were transmitted through word of mouth, but nowadays they also circulate by email, on WhatsApp chains or other instant messaging applications, as well as other similar channels.
Due to their paranormal or unlikely content, in most cases it is very difficult to know what is true in these stories. If you are interested in knowing some of the most famous real urban legends, take note because here are some examples.
5. The Diatlov Pass incident
One of the most famous royal urban legends is the Diatlov Pass incident . This event took place in the early morning of February 2, 1959 in the Ural Mountains, in an area located between the Komi Republic and the Sverdlovsk Oblast (Russia) known as Kholat Syakhl, which in Mansi means Dead Mountain.
According to the chronicles of the time, nine ski enthusiasts and a guide heading towards Mount Otorten camped in the area and died under strange circumstances. The researchers noted that the tent had been cracked from the inside by the hikers, who came barefoot and scantily clad outside, where the temperature was between -15 and -20 ° C. Some of them had tried to climb a tree.
Furthermore, the corpses showed signs of fighting . Two of them had a fractured skull and two broken ribs, another had part of his face missing, another had a broken neck and lacked tongue, and another had fractures to his chest and was missing several teeth. Four of the bodies had high levels of radiation, according to later documents. They did not have many external injuries but they did have many internal ones, as if they had been impacted by a high level of pressure.
Investigators were unable to determine what had caused the skiers' death and attributed it to "an unknown and insurmountable force . " The investigation summary remained in a secret file until the 1990s, when it was made public with some missing pages.
Access to the site was closed for three years and was later renamed Diatlov Pass in honor of the expedition's leader, 23-year-old Igor Diatlov . The incident has been made into a movie on several occasions and has starred in various documentaries and books.
4. The call of death
The call of death is a popular urban legend that we have all heard from time to time and that has been a recurring theme in film and literature. Although there are different variants of the story, the general line is the same in all of them: a person receives a phone call that ends his life , either suddenly or after a certain interval of time.
Although it may seem incredible, this urban legend has a real basis and was a relatively common phenomenon, especially during the 1980s in the United States. It is not really a deadly call, but it is the phone that kills the person who picks it up due to cardiac arrest. This happened when lightning struck a nearby area, producing a powerful electrical discharge that was transmitted through the handset off the hook to the victim's body, causing a heart attack.
3. The bogeyman
Traditionally, adults scare children with monster stories to get them to behave. The bogeyman is one of the figures used for this purpose, and although you may have thought all your life that he does not exist, he has a real basis, he is one of the most famous urban legends .
The event to which the origin of the expression "bogeyman" or "sacamantecas" is attributed is known as Gádor's crime and took place in 1910 in this town of Almería. Francisco Ortega, a tuberculosis patient, is made to believe that he can be cured if he drinks the blood of a child and rubs his chest with his entrails.
With this idea in mind, Ortega went looking for his victim accompanied by a healer, who is the one who informed him of the supposed remedy for his illness. Together they found a seven-year-old boy named Bernardo González Parra, playing alone, and they took him away in a sack . Afterward, they desired him to death and removed his tails. The authorities discovered the crime and they were sentenced to the death penalty for a vile club. If you wish, in this link you can read the complete chronicle of the time published in the newspaper ABC.
2. Escalators that swallow people
You may have heard an urban legend that narrates a harsh and dramatic event: a mother is swallowed by an escalator trying to save her young son. If someone has told you about this event and you did not believe it, know that it is a real event that took place in a shopping center in Jingzhou in Hubei province (China).
The mall security camera recorded everything that happened. The woman arrived with her young son at the end of the escalator when, when she stepped on the metal platform at the top end, the sheet metal sank under her feet and the mechanism swallowed the mother, who managed to save her son to that was not also engulfed by the gears.
Although something this dramatic is rare, escalator accidents happen more than we think. In Spain, during 2016 there were four serious accidents, including an entrapment between the plinth and the steps, as well as 110 minor accidents, for example hands or fingers caught in the handrail.
1. A mouse in a soda can
One of the most famous urban legends in Spain that you have surely heard on more than one occasion is the one that tells the story of a person who has found a mouse in a soda can. If you have ever heard it and doubted its veracity, you should know that it is a real story that has happened in our country.
One of the documented cases took place in Meaño, a municipality of Pontevedra, in 2007. Sindo Abal, a 30-year-old man, reported that after drinking a can of soda that he had bought in a local supermarket, he had found a mouse inside.
"It did not taste strange to me, until I began to notice something heavy inside the can that moved when shaking the liquid," said the affected person. "The feeling of disgust at seeing that it was a rat cannot be described in words , that day at home no one was able to eat."
This is not the only real case in which a person has found a mouse in a can. In 2013, a French citizen discovered a rodent inside a can of green beans , and in 2015 a couple from Buenos Aires (Argentina) found a baby rat in a can of peach in syrup.
However, not all the findings are true. In 2012, a man from Wisconsin (United States) claimed to have found a mouse inside a can of Mountain Dew , a Pepsi soft drink. The brand denied it, claiming that the liquid is capable of dissolving the animal.
